New Life
by Kathryn Claire O'Connor
Summary: Two years after the bus nearly crashed over the Frank Church-River of No Return Wilderness, Agent Hill and Fury find out what's been going on with Coulson's team in their time off the grid - and they can't quite wrap their minds around what they find. *First in the "New Life" series! Philinda, Hunter/Morse, Skitz, and BioSpecialist*


**So this is a one-shot introduction/prequel/sequel sort of thing to a series idea that I might continue later, if you guys would be interested in hearing the arc that I've come up with to be behind this one-shot. Please leave a review to that end, whatever your opinion is; thanks! Enjoy!:)**

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><p>It had been two years. Two years since most of Coulson's team had disappeared, fallen out of the bus midair, mid-malfunction. Two years of endless searching on the parts of Trip, Fury, Mack, and Maria Hill for the eight missing agents. Then, out of the blue… they had found them. Or, more accurately, the missing agents had found those looking for them. Two long years of not knowing what had happened to Coulson, May, Ward, Fitzsimmons, Bobbi, Skye, and Hunter – and then Coulson contacted Trip out of the blue one day.<p>

The eight of them were all together, they were all safe and on the bus once more, and they couldn't wait to see the rest of their team again.

So within twenty-four hours, Trip, Mack, and Maria got their coordinates, commandeered a helicopter, and landed on the bus while it was still in flight.

Like Trip and Mack, Maria was feeling a little disoriented by the suddenness of it all, but she was still as anxious as anyone to see the missing eight, and – she thought – prepared for any changes in them that she might encounter. After all, it had been two years. People change within that amount of time.

But _nothing _had prepared her for what she and the two men with her had ultimately found. Once she'd greeted those on the bus and given herself some time to try and digest what she was seeing, she had called Fury to give him the report that she knew he was anxiously awaiting. However, she honestly hadn't known how to break it to him.

In the end, she'd said simply, "You're going to have to come here yourself. I really don't think you'll be able to believe it until you see it."

Nick Fury had thought he was ready for anything when he first stepped onto the bus twenty-four hours after receiving Maria's call, and after two years of catching neither hide nor hair of the bus, Coulson, or his team. However, the first thing he caught sight of rearranged his thoughts on that subject instantly.

Dr. Jemma Simmons was sitting on a couch… breastfeeding a baby.

The scientist flushed about seven shades of red and hurried to close her blouse, stammering, "I am so sorry! Hello, sir; how have you been?"

Before Nick could quite even begin to process what he'd just seen, he felt a new sensation at his legs. He looked down to see two more infants pulling up into a standing position with the help of his pants' legs – and two more than that toddling towards him on foot. The language that flew from his mouth at this was nothing that should have been falling on their young ears, but he found that he didn't quite have complete control of his faculties at that point. After the totally unexpected little ones came a flow of the seven other people Nick had expected to be greeted by – and all of them seemed to be in search of one of the children currently crowded around the former director.

"What am I looking at?" Nick yelled. At his raised voice, five more little people decided to raise their own protests and began to cry. Skye, Fitz, May, and Bobbi sprang forward and each picked up one of the wailing babies, trying to comfort them as Nick demanded again over the skyrocketing noise in the room, "Coulson, what is going on here?"

"The same thing that was going on when Maria Hill called you before she left yesterday," Coulson replied calmly, and Nick decided _not _to notice that the man was wearing an actual t-shirt, jeans, and socked feet in the middle of the day.

"And now I'm beginning to understand why she didn't have the words to explain! What is this?!"

"Our own version of domestic bliss – a new life for all of us, if you will."

"No, I will not! Who is responsible for all of these children?"

"We all are, sir," Coulson replied.

Nick looked at him menacingly, asking succinctly as the noise level in the room quieted back to normal levels, "What exactly is that supposed to mean?" Coulson took a very deep breath, suddenly looking wary of answering the question and Nick groaned, realizing the truth. "All of these are your children, aren't they?"

"No," Coulson answered. "Not all of them are _mine _exactly. Just one is biologically mine."

Nick glanced around the room until his one good eye narrowed pointedly on the oldest child in the room, the Asian boy Agent May held who looked to be around fourteen months old. "Am I to understand that you and Agent May share a _child_ now, Agent Coulson."

"And a marriage license," Coulson added brightly, though he was under no illusions as to how unpleased Fury was.

"What exactly does that mean for the rest of your team?" Nick asked sharply, and then, "No, don't tell me; let me guess. That-" He pointed to the youngest baby, whom Dr. Simmons still held in her arms. "Belongs to Fitzsimmons."

"Nope," Grant Ward spoke up.

Dr. Simmons added helpfully, "You're half right, though."

Nick glared at her, biting out, "That was fairly clear the moment I walked in the door." The female doctor curled into herself a little bit as Fury spat out, "So am I supposed to understand that Dr. Simmons has a _child_ with _Grant Ward_?"

"Bingo," the ex-Hydra man drawled.

"That one-" Nick nodded towards the other fourteen-month-old in the room, this one in the arms of Barbara Morse. "Belongs to you and your ex-husband, I suppose."

"We're remarried now, though," Agent Morse declared.

"Which leaves what?" Nick asked, looking between Skye and Dr. Fitz and the one child each that they were both holding. "Are those two both yours? Is that a pair of _twins_?"

Coulson declared brightly, if not a bit sarcastically, "Now you've got it all down."

"No!" Nick snapped. "No, I do not have 'it all down'! The last thing I knew, it was your _bus _that was headed downwards – as in malfunctioning and _going to crash _but most of your team was separated and fell out the hatch or jumped ship. Agent Triplett and Mackenzie made it to a SHIELD base soon after the incident, informed us what had happened, and we and Agent Hill have been looking for the eight of you ever since. Then, the next thing I know, I come in here two years later to find every one of you playing house and running a nursery in the sky! I do not have it all 'down', but I demand answers – real ones – starting right now!"

"That's going to take awhile," Coulson warned. "It's actually a few separate but converging stories."

Nick snapped instantly, "Oh, I'll make the time."

"I don't suppose it's going to be enough to know that we're all happy now in this new life – with these new lives that we've created, is it?"

"Not a chance."

"Then let's at least sit down." The eight people who had been standing all settled into seats before Coulson asked Nick, "Who would you like to start?"

"You're supposed to be in charge here; please, go ahead."

Taking a deep breath, Coulson wrapped an arm around the shoulders of Melinda May, who'd sat down beside him with their son in her lap and began, "Okay then. If you really want to know-"

"Believe me," Nick said peevishly. "I do."


End file.
